Tag Archives: dreams

Here’s a very short excerpt of the story I’m currently writing, When It All Comes Crashing Down. A teaser, I suppose. It doesn’t give you much about the story, but, hey, I had fun writing it. (This is an example of “writing” while driving–you can write, gather ideas anywhere. I recorded this into my voice recorder while taking a long drive through Wisconsin.)

The stand of pines stood tall and straight to the edge of the field. Their branches hung over the field, welcoming Thoreau into the stand of trees. Not like the opposite stand of oaks, with their twisted and gnarled branches, sinister and unwelcoming, the pines seemed to him open, their whispers in the wind comforted him. The oaks leafless and silent, held their secrets in thick bark. Ancient secrets, Thoreau thought. Unspoken things from unspoken worlds. Hard hearts as hard as his. The pines, he could feel in his hands, had thinner bark, their lower limbs coming off easily, their dead wood cast off early to prevent diseases, before they brought about death. The pines seemed happy, lighter. They caught the wind, hoping to share their secrets with the wind. And just like Echo, this new person in his life, they were ever green. Always alive, always moving and thriving. Colorful. Thoreau imagined that he was not unlike an oak, a hardwood tree. Like an oak, Thoreau now felt dead and hard inside. Barely alive, barely surviving the winter. How did she do it? She didn’t survive, she thrived. He had become stiff and unbending. Yet still, he thought somewhere deep inside, he was strong. Something inside, a quality about him that made him sturdy, something strong, something lasting. He was a hardwood, not a softwood. Could it be that the pine, while seemingly alive, seemingly gracious and on the surface soft and smooth, be too soft inside, lacking integrity? He thought Echo could be this way. Maybe it was an act. Maybe inside she was soft, that she lacked integrity, couldn’t withstand time and difficulty. He wasn’t so sure what to think of her. He didn’t trust her. He didn’t trust the pines, but he still slept under their branches that night.

Here’s a short story for your enjoyment. It’s based on a dream I had on Monday. Don’t know what will come of it. Not carefully edited or even well-thought out at this point–I just threw it down on paper. I’m WRITING and that is what counts, baby.

Will it turn into a book, a short story, end here as flash fiction? Let me know what you think.

Dead Man

A cadaver lies frozen on our gravel driveway.

Nothing strange about that, really. My family is buying it today. Or are we renting it? Storing it for someone else’s safe keeping? I’ve been exporting goods in from India to keep my American clients happy, so I haven’t been around much lately. Always interesting to see what they’ve been doing to make money when I’m not around.

My latest haul was an ungodly-sized asbestos sheet. It’s the new stuff. Thin and flexible, safe for your lungs, supposedly. (Dad never believed the asbestos scare in the first place, “back in the day.”) Made in India. Very safe, they say, but the stuff flakes off like a…. Very expensive too, so I’ll make some decent change. What my clients will use it for, I have no idea. The thing is huge: imagine trying to lug one around, extremely thin 10 x 18 foot sheet of this stuff. Well, I am. One sheet. If it was at least two or more, the sheets would give each other a bit of support. As it is, one sheet gives me the challenge of strapping it down and keeping it from flying loose. And that’s all before I tried smuggling it in, which is even more difficult. Okay, boring for you, I know. The cadaver, now that’s more interesting, right?

I’ve learned not to ask anymore, to let my family do what they need to do. To survive? I’m not sure. They have plenty to eat—that’s certainly not a problem evidenced by my father’s rather porcine gut and my mother’s generous backside. When things were more difficult—a decade or so ago—my parents sold off my older sister as a prostitute. I was only eight at the time, ate like a bird, so they kept me around.

“Help us carry it in, will you?” my dad asks.

“Really? I’ve got enough going on,” I reply. Honestly, dead people creep me out—especially stiff, frozen ones. I see plenty most days in my work, and I never get used to it. I just can’t work with them.

“Then find a way to make yourself useful; we feed you, you know.” That’s my mom.

You feed me because I help support you with my business, Mom!

The two of them struggle to pull the stiff into the house, its heals dragging on the driveway, making little ruts in the gravel.

“Where are you keeping it?” I ask.

“Your brother’s room.” Dad.

“And he’s okay with that?”

“He has no choice,” Mom says, “It’s the coldest room in the house.” (Every room in our house is cold; I’m not sure what she means.)

My brother, who will remain nameless, is a passive-aggressive type so we won’t know for some time how he feels about a dead guy in his room. Nameless will lash out at some point when we least expect it.